Abstract: This paper tries to calculate China’s inter-provincial total factor energy efficiency under carbon emission constraints and uses the panel data model to conduct an empirical analysis of the factors affecting energy efficiency. The findings show that during the sampling period China’s energy efficiency remains relatively lower, the yearly average is about 0.503. The energy efficiency from high to low is eastern 0.580, centre 0.497, and western 0.422 respectively. Foreign direct investment, export, marketization, human capital, energy consumption structure all have significantly positive effect on the inter-provincial energy efficiency, while investment and government interventions can produce significantly negative effect. At the regional level, the imbalance of inter-regional development results in significant regional differences of the effect of 8 factors on energy efficiency. In the different stages, the effect of 8 factors on energy efficiency presents the feature of differences in stages. Therefore, the adjustment of policies to local conditions and time conditions is the efficient means to improve energy efficiency.

Key words: carbon emission constraint; total-factor energy efficiency; regional difference